TrooperCooper

Which mod is the fairing from? Is that procedural fairings mod? looks nice!

Yeah thats a nuclear reactor from OKS, indeed. I like low part counts.

This: http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/ and this: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/47863-1-0-2-Precise-Node-1-1-3-Precisely-edit-your-maneuver-nodes will get you going.

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean.

The KSA finally did its first manned interplanetary mission. Click here to see more.

The KSA finally did its first manned interplanetary mission. Click the spoiler below the picture to see more. 12 years after the beginning of the space program, the KSA was ready to step into interplanetary space. Since the first manned mission beyond the SOI of Kerbin was just aiming to achieve an orbit arround Duna and then head back during the next return window, the payload was much lighter than for a landing mission that was planned for later. The setup of the top stage basicly consisted of what would be used for a crew rotation of the Habitation Rover minus the extra fuel for the lander. The package was strapped on a standardized 85 ton lifter and Jeb, Bob and Gerke prepared for their voyage. We have lift off... Launch booster seperation... The Griffon XX engine cluster accelerated the rocket further... Seperation of the launch stage at 30 km... Finalizing the ascent, going for a 100 km orbit... Breaching into space and ejecting the fairings... After arriving in a parking orbit, the transfer was planned. 3 days buffer time and then a 3 month long flight ahead... When the countdown reached zero, the ship began to burn out of its orbit,... ...leaving Kerbin behind. The first crew report from interplanetary space, while the home planet in the background became smaller and smaller... After a midflight correction burn, the final approach was set. And almost 89 days after the launch, finally the red planet came in sight... As they got closer, the Kerbalnauts couldnt hold on to themselfs and all of a sudden there were all three of them stargazing outside... ...enjoying the view. Approaching Duna and its moon... Orbital insertion burn... First sunrise above a new world... Arriving at the automated outpost. While it wasnt planned to go there, the three Kerbalnauts decided that they need a party room. The team remained in orbit for almost four month. Then, as the return-window was about to open up, they undocked from the tiny station and prepared to head home. After the travel stage was dumped, the three Kerbals planned their flight. Another 81 days untill they would be back. When the time was right, the little Vesta engine fired up. Zipping past the outpost... ...and leaving the red planet behind. Bye bye Duna and Ike,... we will be back. Nearly three month later, Kerbin and its moons came in sight. Approaching the home world... Orbital insertion burn. To stay on the safety side, a direct aero-brake-descend was not planned. After the re-entry, the capsule hang on its chutes... And the mission was a flawless success. Since this run had no issues at all, the KSA is now preparing for the real thing: deployment of the Habitation Rover on the surface of Duna and then a manned landing.

The KSA is finishing its equipment tests on the Mun and prepares to start manned missions to Duna soon. Click here to see more.

The KSA is finishing its equipment tests on the Mun and prepares to start manned missions into interplanetary space soon. Click the spoiler below the picture for details. The Habitation Rover pulled away from the two ships as the Kerbalnauts were about to start their planned maneuver... Then the lander took off, remotely controled by Jebediah. Carefully he moved over towards the carrier ship.... And put it down next to it in a shaky landing... Then Gerke connected the two vessels through their ports. And the rover moved into position. And as the Kerbals had hoped, in this setup a link connection was possible... Now the drilling and fuel production could begin. The 3 Kerbalnauts spent the next month on the Mun to run further tests of their equipment. A few weeks later they were pretty positive, that with a few bug fixes they could survive on the surface of Duna for a prolonged time as well. The mission was a success and after shutting down the Habitation Rover, the team boarded the lander. And left the test site. Meeting up with the command- and return- module in Munar orbit. After the crew transfer, the travel stage was jetted and the lander left in Munar orbit. Who knows, maybe one day the KSA might need it there... Jeb fired the Vesta-engine and the team left the Muns orbit... With a live-test of the return stage, they landed back on Kerbin one day later. Now that the KSA had completed testing the backbone of the Duna projects gear, it was time to iron out all the minor issues that occured in the designs. In the meantime an upcoming Duna transfer window was to be utilized. Two automated vessels took off from the KSC... One was a small automated station that was to be transfered into Dunas low orbit to serve as a safe haven if the need would arise in the future. It was soon followed by the next lifter-launch... ... which brought the Duna Explorer, a combination of orbiter and lander into space. Both vessels left Kerbin during the transfer window... Course set... As Duna Explorer arrived at its destination... It split up... The orbiter accelerated a bit ahead... While the lander stayed back to avoid overlapping maneuver times on arrival... The orbiter went into a polar orbit and started to analyze the planet in all possible ways... The lander went into an equatorial orbit. And after leaving its travel stage behind... ...it descended on the surface. First touch-down of a kerbal-made object on Duna. Loads of scientific data were transmitted at once. Shortly afterwards, the orbital outpost arrived and burned into a plane orbit. After deployment of its solar panels, it is now ready to serve as a shelter for any upcoming team of Kerbalnauts that might have to wait for a rescue ship. It also has a little backup fuel for the return stages or the Duna lander, in case some pilot should pull a wastefull maneuver... The KSA has also decided to take a slower approach. Instead of going for a landing right away, there will be one or more manned missions to the red planets SOI without a descent to the surface at the beginning, just like during the Apollo-Program. Jebediah, Bob and Gerke are already gearing up to catch the next transfer window...

You could use the new ISRU converter module and ore drills to produce fuel on Duna just fine. Just a tip. Not sure how it fits into your design plans...

Problem solved.

My large space station spontaneously disintegrating after a physics engines load error while I was slowing down way above with a tanker... Those are the moments that I still use the safegame option for in my career.

The KSA is developing the equipment for its Duna project and beginning to test the new gear on the Mun. Click here to see more.

The KSA is developing the equipment for its Duna project and beginning to test the new gear on the Mun. Click the spoiler below the picture to see more. The upcoming Duna project means a massive effort for the growing Kerbal Space Agency. The goal is to send a colony module, that can keep three Kerbals alive, to Kerbins outer neighbor-planet. Once it has been landed, a team of Kerbals will travel to Duna with the next transfer-window and remain there for at least one year. Then it will travel back, leaving the colony-module on the surface and a 2nd crew will come from Kerbin to live on Duna for another year. Here is an overview of the vessels that will be used: The backbone of the project will be the Duna Habitation Rover with a total mass of nearly 44 tons. It is based on the mining rovers that were developed for Minmus earlier. However, since there will be plenty of time for refueling the landed ships, its drilling capacity is much lower. Instead it has more living space for a bigger crew, better life support systems and a wheel-system more suited for Dunas surface. The main power-source is a nuclear reactor, just like on the mining rovers, positioned just behind the crew quarters to save on heating costs. The KSA finished developing and testing of the Skydragon heavy cargo-SSTO. It will be used to haul the Habitation Rover into a low Kerbin orbit. Once the rover is in space, a carrier (some might call it a tug) will come to pick it up. Since this carrier-system is heavy and awkward enough to launch by itself, it wont be burdened with its payload during take off (lifter-stage not included in the pic below). After the above setup has deployed the Habitation Rover to the surface of Duna, the first exploration crew will launch from Kerbin. They will take off with the largest "regular" single-lane-rocket constructed thus far by the KSA. The three Kerbals and their gear that you can see within the fairings in the pic below (from top to bottom: lander, command- and return vehicle, travel-stage) will be riding a 180-ton lifter that was thus far only used for the unmanned Andromeda tanker class. Approximately one year later (depending on transfer windows), the 2nd crew will launch. Since by then a functional and re-useable lander should be in place at Duna, they will only carry a little extra-fuel in their travel stage and thus can use a slightly smaller lifter system (payload weight about 130 tons). Picture below: in the fairings the command- and return-vessel and the travel- and fueler stage below. Since this project deemed to be somewhat complex and Kerbal-lives were at risk, after a few launch simulations, a more or less complete test-run on the Mun was set up to learn the procedures and get a chance to iron out any design-flaws. So as a first step, the Skydragon took off from the KSC runway. Pedal to the metal... or something like that... The Skydragon released the Habitation Rover in LKO... ...and returned to its nest. Just half an hour after the return of the SSTO, the carrier-system, that was already waiting on the launchpad took off. In the upper atmosphere, the lifter package was dropped... And the ship continued on its own engines. Rendezvous with the Habitation Rover. Come to papa... I got you. Bobster, chief-engineer of the KSS Alpha, boarded the Kerbin Taxi and headed for the Rover Carrier. Docking up at the target. And then it was EVA-time for Bobster to properly strut the Rover up on its carrier. Once his work was done, he seemed pretty pleased... The Kerbalnaut headed back to the orbital spaceport. As mission control turned its focus back on the carrier-system and its payload, it had to realize that somehow the cargo struts were gone again. It looked like Bobster would get a tiresome miner-job on a distant moon just like Roissa. But the connection seemed rigid enough to carry on with the mission. And after all, it was a test... so the Rover Carrier met up with the Pegasus tanker to refuel. And then it headed off to the Mun for its deployment. Insertion burn into Mun orbit... Soon it was descending on Kerbin... on the Mun surface. Mission success. Next step was a test of the lander. The test-contract did not involve the actual travel stages of the first crew. Considering the costs of the whole rocket, a lander-only test makes this quite profitable instead. But it means some risk for the future... So the lander and a small travel-stage were strapped on a cheap lifter and boosted into space... A few hours later, the lander about to do an inclination change on the backside of the Mun. Since the farside crater, where the Habitation Rover had landed, was in the dark, the loiter-time was used to swing arround the Mun and get this nice image of it with Kerbin and the sun on it. Shortly afterwards, the lander gets put down within spit range of the rover and its carrier. And the 2nd trial-mission of the Apollo-Duna project was complete. Next up was a full blown practice run for the 2nd crew transfer. As mentioned further above, the 2nd crew wont have to carry an own lander, since they should be able to rely on the one that travelled with the first crew. So a much smaller and more affordable rocket comes to use. Take off from the pad... Boosters out... Jeb seems to like the action as usual... The X-10L "Thor" SRBs falling back towards the KSC... Through the gravity turn... Mid-launcher seperation... And into space we go... As the vessel breached into space, the fairings came off... Half an hour later, after seperation from the last lifter stage, the vessel started the burn for the Mun. On a trajectory towards the target. Sending back a status report. As the three Kerbals entered orbit arround the Mun, the lander took off again from the surface. Rendezvous 30 km above the Mun. Gerke, the missions engineer, pumped the fuel from the travel stage into the lander. Then the three Kerbals went on board... ... and left their command- and return-module in orbit... ...to do a precision landing near the Habitation Rover. On the Mun yet again... Gerke had the honor of placing a test-site flag. Then he went over to the carrier and inspected the Rover. After boarding it, he declamped the docking ports and tried to move forward. To his surprise, the vehicle would not move much, beeing held back by what seemed to still be a connection with the carrier-ship. Gerke checked out the docking port again and fired the emergency-decoupler underneath it to make sure the connection was cut. But still, the vehicle was not moving at all. So Gerke even blew up the now useless radial connector port. But that didnt help either. So Gerke pulled back, shaking his head and crawled back into the lander to discuss with the rest of the crew. The three Kerbals decided to try lifting the carrier up, even though that was considered as slightly risky as the mission depends on the intact Habitation Rover. But it beeing tied to the carrier would make things difficult at best, too, since the Rover had to refuel the lander vessel in order to get the Kerbalnauts back to their command module later on. So Jeb pulled out the remote device and gently lifted the carrier up. Unfortunately, the Rover remained fixed to it even in flight. After Jeb had almost crash-landed the ship, Gerke had an idea and flew over to the relocated carrier, mumbling something about invisible struts... And indeed... the struts that were installed in EVA in LKO earlier were intact, just not displayed. All right, Bobster,... no need to worry about becoming a miner yet. Gerke started to take down the invisu-struts... As he pulled out the last one, he accidently smashed his oversized head against the nuclear reactor and fell to the ground between the huge tires of the rover. Still giggling about the situation, Jeb and Bob in the lander realized that the rover had started to roll due to the slope of the terrain and the released brakes and joints. And Gerke was laying and tumbling right in its way as the rover began to pick up speed... Bob yelled like crazy over the radio as Gerke tumbled further underneath the 44 ton colossus... ...just enough to be inbetween the lanes and the rover rolled over him... ...without catching him. Looking back at the rolling monster. Ground clearance can not be valued high enough... Then Gerke had to hurry up... And chase the rover down before it would become to fast and roll over the next cliff... Now the mission finally seemed to be on the right track. The engineer boarded the rover and drove it up... ...to the lander to start mining and refueling. Only to discover another problem... the connector ports on the rover were attached at the top... and on the lander at the bottom. Gerke: "Uh, Jeb... this doesnt look good". Jeb: "Yeah, those ports were moved out of the way to make room to mount the vehicle inside the SSTO lifter. You are an engineer. Take your screwdriver and reposition those ports." Gerke: "Uh... Screwdriver... nobody told me to bring my own." Bob: "D'oh!" So the three Kerbalnauts sat down inside the Habitation Rover to consider their options. Bob said mission control could certainly send a package with a screwdriver within a short time. But Jeb was against that, since such an option wouldn't be available on Duna either and calling for help was not his style anyway. Gerke mentioned that this lander was designed for Duna,... it still had plenty of fuel for a Mun orbit left. They wouldnt need to use the mining equipment to get home again. But Jeb shaked his head again. The mission requirements precisely listed a full test of all key elements of the upcoming Duna operation. Eventually they came up with a plan. The carrier also had connector ports for refueling, since this vessel was planned to be re-useable. So it might be possible to position the Rover on one side and link it up and connect the lander on the other side of the carrier. Then pump fuel through the tug into the landers tanks. However, it would require very precise maneuvering with the lander right next to the carrier-ship... (to be continued...)

IMO uninstall FF and go back to a save from before triggering the bug. Everything else can get pretty buggy. I had my whole game corrupted by it once and unable to spawn or switch to any vessel etc. So if you dont have a backup... well, try to stay on the safety side. Everything else is up for your testing.

Its caused by the final frontier mod beeing buggy at the moment. Or rather final frontier in conjunction with other mods like KAS and inter-ship connections. See here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/67246-1-0-2-Final-Frontier-kerbal-individual-merits-0-8-2-1285?p=2007498#post2007498 If you need a fast fix, remove your "Nereid" folder from GameData and it should prevent this bug from occuring. Or wait for an update... Or if you cant play without FF,... as a work-arround... in my testings it seemed like the bug doesnt occur if all vessels are manned when the connection is established. You might wanna try that if it doesnt cause to much trouble. PS: I hope you have a save from before this bug got triggered in your career.

https://imgur.com/ doesnt need an account. Just click "upload images" at the top and you are good to go.

Struts and RCS drive up your part count. Struts also add drag and make your rocket look ugly as... With the Joint Reinforcement mod you can fly huge vessels without struts, without wobble... guess what... instead of looking like pyramids or pieces of strut-art, your creations will automaticly begin to look like... rockets.

Look for CS-R2 Strut in the Utility tab. They should be there. Stock struts wont work.

All right. Thanks!

The KSA finally got its Minmus mining setup running. For details click here.

The KSA got its mining project on Minmus up and running. For details, click the spoiler below the picture. A 40 ton lifter taking off from the KSC... It carried a large exploration probe into orbit: the Ike Inspector, which will investigate Dunas moon. While the KSA was waiting for the Duna window and the VAB was busy creating more equipment for the mining setup on Minmus, the TwinStar was sent to the KSS Alpha to run another experiment. Then the Pegasus, a new class of heavy tanker to ship fuel from Minmus to Kerbin was finished and rolled out. Booster seperation at 20 km... The vessel continued through the upper atmosphere. Soon the nuclear engines would take over... And then it happened... Upon seperation of the launch engines, the LV-Ns fairings collided into the body of the ship. When the dust had settled, it became clear that the tail-section of the 770k Kredits vessel had been ripped off by the debries. So the engineers had to start building a new one... with 90° rotated main-engines this time, so that the fairings could hopefully seperate freely... while the 3-month long construction work was going on, the Ike Inspector catched its launch window and headed for Duna. Two month to transfer... While it had been planned to continue with the Minmus mining operation, the KSA now had plenty of time to do more profitable experiments at the KSS Alpha with the Twinstar, due to the prior accident. Ike Inspector arriving at Duna... Swinging arround the planet on entry with direct catch of Ike... Arriving at the mission target... Nice line-up. After the probe had inspected the surface, it went into a polar orbit... And mapped the moons resource concentrations for later use. In the background: the old probes Mariner 4 and Mariner 10 wandering off into deep space... Finally the second Pegasus had been finished and it was soon launched from the KSC. The KSA was hard-pressed to finally get mining on Minmus going and so there was a sense of tension in the mission control room... Booster seperation forming a nice pattern... As the oxizider was almost completly consumed in the upper atmosphere, the moment of truth was coming up... The launch engines stopped, throttle cut to zero... and the seperation was initiated... The LV-N fairings flew away without leaving a scratch... Then the 4 X 2m nuclear rockets took over and blasted the launch engines away... The Pegasus moved over to Minmus into a parking orbit and waited for its partner-ship. Next up for launch was the Moonhammer, the actual fuel-lifter for the mining op. Take off... After booster seperation, the four Kerbodyne engine clusters propelled the ship into the upper atmosphere... At 35k meters these engines were dropped, together with the aerodynamic controls. And the more efficient Rhinos took over. Once the Moonhammer had reached its orbit, the Mammoth took off from the KSC runway. It refueled the tanker in LKO. Then the Moonhammer set course for Minmus as well. Now that these two fatties were on their way, a team of Kerbals took off from the KSC. They docked up at the KSS Alpha and boarded the waiting Kerbin-Taxi. One hour after launch, they left LKO on their way to Kerbins smaller moon. A few days later, the Kerbin-Taxi landed next to the Harfinery. The apprentice-engineer Roissa had been responsible for the Pegasus-accident earlier, and thus it was decided that she would have to take the burden of becoming a lonely miner at Minmus. But somehow the expectation of having to listen to the ISRU-converter and the mining drills for a few years could not ruin her smile. The Kerbin-Taxi with the other Kerbals headed back home again. And when the Moonhammer had landed, Roissa had to do some minor construction work before the drilling could begin... Soon that was done, and the tanks began to fill. Due to the nuclear reactor on the Harfinery, energy is not a concern and thus the drills can run round the clock... as long as the Uranium lasts... a few dozen years or so... When it was filled up, the Moonhammer took off again... Parking in a low orbit arround the cold moon. The Pegasus with its more efficient nuclear engines took over to haul the precious fuel back to Kerbin. And while the Moonhammer landed back at the Harfinery to be filled up again... The Pegasus arrived at the KSS Alpha... And pumped 320 tons of fuel and oxidizer into the stations tanks... Now that the logistical backbone has been set up and the budget isnt as tight anymore, the KSA is beginning to develop the equipment for the Duna project...

Thank you for your mod! Having lots of fun with it. One question though: I am about to get going with the Apollo-Duna project and the mission text mentions that I will have to keep two crews for one year each on the surface... now will those be Earth-years? or Kerbin-years?

42 fivechar

Hi there! I also ran into a Kerbal-cloning bug today. Since it seemed to render my whole mining operation on Minmus useless, I was pretty upset and spent most of the day figuring out whats causing it and finally nailed it down to this mod in conjunction with KW-Rocketry and KAS/KIS. Here is how to reproduce it: Clean GameData folder except for the following: KAS KIS Nereid KWRocketry Module Manager Vessel setup: Take a probe core (I used RC-001S, RC-L01 or Okto2, but any should do) as root part. Attach a KW-Rocketry v-15 LFT tank below. Attach another KW-Rocketry v-15 LFT tank radially to the first tank. Then put a KAS CC-R2 Connector port anywhere on those tanks. The above is the setup that will cause the problem. Now take another vessel that has one crew pod with one Kerbal in it and also has a KAS CC-R2 Connector port attached to it near the bug-vessel. EVA with the Kerbal and link from his vessels port to the bugged tank-vessels port. Then go back with the Kerbal to his pod and enter it. He will go inside and get cloned at the door at the same time, leaving his clone outside. From then on all sorts of problems in the game begin to occur, pretty much screwing you up if you dont have a backup save. If I delete the Nereid folder from GameData, the bug does not occur in the setup above. I hope this helps to track down the problem. If needed, I can post pictures. But I m not sure what logs you could need, other than a screenshot of what I see in alt+F12 => debug.

Thank you! The varity comes from all the different purposes of the crafts. There is so much one can do in KSP, its mind-boggling.